For as long as I've been conscious of it, I've always been bemused by celebrity. What is it that makes us so interested in people that are particularly successful in the professions of acting, singing, and other forms of public presentation and creative expression? What is it that motivates so many of us to care enough about this particular group of people that such a massive part of media representation can afford to be concerned with their day-to-day lives and tribulations?
The obvious answer is identification, i.e. we want to be them, or attraction, i.e. we want to be with them. But I'm not so sure that it's as simple as that. It is by now a cliche, a truism, that celebrity is not all that it's cracked up to be. Everybody with two or more brain cells knows that there's something behind the glitz and the glamour that doesn't correspond very well with the surface imagery. If you're a straight guy and you wish you were Brad Pitt because he's rich, famous and loved by millions of women, you have to acknowledge an awareness of the darker side of fame - difficulty sustaining relationships, inability to mix properly with most of the rest of society, constant surveillance, and so on. If you're a straight girl and you wish you were with Mr. Pitt, you'd have to try to ignore the occasional rumours that he's a bit of a dickhead in real life. What, then, sustains the fantasy of celebrity for so many people?
A couple of themes regarding religion and material values seem to provide a possible answer. For one thing, it's undeniable that we live in a materialistic society (another truism). What this really means is that many of us value wealth, choice and acquisition highly. Given this premise, it seems natural that we'd celebrate those of us that have the most. However uncomfortable daily life is for an A-list celebrity, he or she does have a large quantity of things that we value: choice, money, and (closely related to these) power and influence.
This leads to the theme of religion. We celebrate these people becuse they're the kings and queens of the Western world (take this more or less literally when you consider those that make the jump from performing arts to politics, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, Peter Garrett, and, in a sense, Bono). It seems to be almost immutably human to worship somebody who has the most of what one highly values.
I'd take it further still, and suggest that celebrities are deified in the West. I'm an atheist, but I (admittedly paradoxically) believe that religion is an irrevocable part of human experience. In secular societies like America, Britain, Canada, Australia and some European nations, many people will look beyond conventional religion for a supplementary source of faith and spirituality. Perhaps, then, celebrities are surrogate gods, and sites of fame like Hollywood and the stage at a rock concert are a surrogate Heaven. Most of us know that fame is a beautiful illusion, but our religious, anti-rational sensibilities encourage us to believe in the illusion anyhow. We identify with our gods; we want to be or at least be like our gods.
There's another element in the equation that I reckon holds a fair bit of sway: love. Love is another highly-valued quality that many celebrities have in large supply (love of a fickle sort, anyway). Fans of a band or musician present the clearest example. The musician is emblematic of a fan's taste in music. If the authenticity his or her talents are disputed by somebody else, the fan will often feel defensive. Fans often excuse a musician's unusual or antisocial behaviour because they are tempered by respect for his or her talent.
Respect or admiration are mistaken for love by fans and celebrities alike. Some celebrities become aloof or develop inflated egos because they perceive a sea of faces that are displaying affection for them. Aside from identification, fans want to be where the celebrity is because they often similarly perceive that the celebrity is well-loved. And who doesn't want to be well-loved?
Britney Spears painted a stark picture of a celebrity that mistook attention for love in her exhibitionistic behaviour during her tumultuous spiral into post-pop-queen despair. She's been to the top; she's had the opportunity to do what few can: peek behind the silver curtain of celebrity that burns in the back of so many western souls. Judging by her behaviour, she's all too aware of what's behind this curtain: nothing. Perhaps she understands that much of what she once aspired to really amounts to nothing.
So why is she doing the western world a favour? Well, her nihilistic behaviour is perfectly reflecting the truth that lies behind the proverbial curtain. When young, impressionable kids witness the shameful downfall of an icon of such supposed perfection, they're much more likely to question the admiration and deification that constitutes the phenomenon of celebrity.
Next post I want to talk about political extremism.
Friday, 17 August 2007
Friday, 15 June 2007
Have a nice day, or something
I find my job ethically troubling. I get paid AU$15 an hour to screw people over, trying to sell them things that they're sometimes not entirely sure they want.
It's pretty debatable as to whether the interests of the salesperson and the interests of the customer are mutually incompatible. They are different, that's for sure. The 'salesman ethic' is a character type that is basically defined by behaving in a manner that is unnatural to one's personality. Salesmen have to act unnaturally in the company of others. Why? The answer, at the most fundamental level, is that they've got something to hide. Talking up a product involves highlighting its strong points and playing down its weaknesses. Perhaps, then, the truest salesman is he or she who is most adept at deception.
Conservatives, business trainers and middle to senior management would argue otherwise - mainly through rhetoric, of course. For them, the salesman is merely an aid for the customer, sharing the same values as him or her. They would say that both salesman and customer want to come out of the social interaction with the best product to match the customer's needs.
They work from an underlying assumption: that all customers positively want to buy. To be sure, many of us do; these customers will either actively go out to research and subsequently buy a product, or will first go through a purely internal process of value adaptation where a 'want' is modulated into a 'need'. Other customers, however, remain unsure about their wants, and go to the point of sale because it is the most voluminous source of product information - not the most reliable, just the largest. They ultimately want to learn whether or not they really need the product before making their decision as to the 'necessity' of the purchase.
That being said, due consideration should admittedly be accorded to the fact that the customer approaches the salesperson usually with some sort of awareness, however sharply acknowledged, that the ends of the salesman are geared first and foremost towards encouraging customers to buy. Many customers do understand this; they've been bred into a cynicism regarding the salesman's motives. They've been trained in the art of smart buying.
This encourages a sort of half-life (or to use a smart-ass term, anomie) in the development of sales techniques necessary to maximise profit. As buyers become ever-more shrewd, learning the linguistic tools of the trade, the salesman finds that simply starting the interaction with a once-highly-regarded open-ended question, like 'how can I help you?', becomes supposedly inadequate. As the retail sector expands, and competition flourishes, sales techniques become more aggressive, and more dog-eat-dog.
I find a certain personal experience particularly enlightening here. As a permanent part-timer, I was required to attend a one-day sales training seminar with an assortment of full-time staff and assistant managers. The day was devoted to a step-by step account of the 'appropriate' ways in which a salesperson should conduct him/herself during a transaction. Let me list a few points that best illustrate a charade of friendliness and caring that belies a fundamental motive for deception:
There are people that I would call salesmen that don't necessarily work in retail. Their personalities reflect certain traits that resound with the salesman ethic. They'll tend to treat people as a means to an end or as an adornment in their own lives, rather than as another unique individual with separate wants and needs. For the sake of interaction with almost any other human being, they will feel the need to maintain an image, in behaviour, clothing and physical appearance, that meets a high standard. Expressions of real feeling are equated to a show of weakness. Their relationships with other people tend to be shallow or transient. They'll often be competitive or aggressive, whether this is exhibited in the need to keep up with the Joneses or in wit and humour at the expense of others.
It's pretty debatable as to whether the interests of the salesperson and the interests of the customer are mutually incompatible. They are different, that's for sure. The 'salesman ethic' is a character type that is basically defined by behaving in a manner that is unnatural to one's personality. Salesmen have to act unnaturally in the company of others. Why? The answer, at the most fundamental level, is that they've got something to hide. Talking up a product involves highlighting its strong points and playing down its weaknesses. Perhaps, then, the truest salesman is he or she who is most adept at deception.
Conservatives, business trainers and middle to senior management would argue otherwise - mainly through rhetoric, of course. For them, the salesman is merely an aid for the customer, sharing the same values as him or her. They would say that both salesman and customer want to come out of the social interaction with the best product to match the customer's needs.
They work from an underlying assumption: that all customers positively want to buy. To be sure, many of us do; these customers will either actively go out to research and subsequently buy a product, or will first go through a purely internal process of value adaptation where a 'want' is modulated into a 'need'. Other customers, however, remain unsure about their wants, and go to the point of sale because it is the most voluminous source of product information - not the most reliable, just the largest. They ultimately want to learn whether or not they really need the product before making their decision as to the 'necessity' of the purchase.
That being said, due consideration should admittedly be accorded to the fact that the customer approaches the salesperson usually with some sort of awareness, however sharply acknowledged, that the ends of the salesman are geared first and foremost towards encouraging customers to buy. Many customers do understand this; they've been bred into a cynicism regarding the salesman's motives. They've been trained in the art of smart buying.
This encourages a sort of half-life (or to use a smart-ass term, anomie) in the development of sales techniques necessary to maximise profit. As buyers become ever-more shrewd, learning the linguistic tools of the trade, the salesman finds that simply starting the interaction with a once-highly-regarded open-ended question, like 'how can I help you?', becomes supposedly inadequate. As the retail sector expands, and competition flourishes, sales techniques become more aggressive, and more dog-eat-dog.
I find a certain personal experience particularly enlightening here. As a permanent part-timer, I was required to attend a one-day sales training seminar with an assortment of full-time staff and assistant managers. The day was devoted to a step-by step account of the 'appropriate' ways in which a salesperson should conduct him/herself during a transaction. Let me list a few points that best illustrate a charade of friendliness and caring that belies a fundamental motive for deception:
- The fashionable way of starting a transaction is no longer to get into business talk, but rather to engage in small talk. A highlighted point is that opening lines should have nothing to do with business. Favourable topics of conversation often involve complimenting the customer disingenuously on an article of clothing, an accompanying child, or evidence of other purchases made in the shopping centre.
- When asking why a certain feature of a product is important to the customer, it is recommendable that the response is followed up not firstly with a different question but with a comment that demonstrates that the salesperson is interested in what the customer has to say.
- It's also important to overcome deflections at least once. For example, 'I'm just browsing' can be countered with 'that's nice. Just browsing for anything in particular?'
- When the customer agrees to purchase the product, it is wise to eliminate 'buyer's remorse' by verbalising agreement with the customer's choice, like 'I think you've made a wise choice, Jane'. This will reduce the chance of the customer waking up to the realisation that they don't really want what they've just bought, and subsequently returning it.
There are people that I would call salesmen that don't necessarily work in retail. Their personalities reflect certain traits that resound with the salesman ethic. They'll tend to treat people as a means to an end or as an adornment in their own lives, rather than as another unique individual with separate wants and needs. For the sake of interaction with almost any other human being, they will feel the need to maintain an image, in behaviour, clothing and physical appearance, that meets a high standard. Expressions of real feeling are equated to a show of weakness. Their relationships with other people tend to be shallow or transient. They'll often be competitive or aggressive, whether this is exhibited in the need to keep up with the Joneses or in wit and humour at the expense of others.
What are the greater implications of the emergence of this kind of character? I guess it means that people find it harder to identify with each other, to form meaningful relationships and to sustain any real sense of community. What can we do? Frankly, I'm stuck for words.
Next time I want to talk about celebrity.
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Monday, 7 May 2007
Black Tears
From what I can gather, the 'emo' subculture began with its roots in punk rock in the mid to late '90s. For a few years it was nothing more than a musical subgenre, but eventually a subcultural character developed from the music and young adolescents began to adopt the mannerisms, clothing styles and attitudes to life embodied by their favourite emo bands.
'Emo' is an abbreviation of 'emotional'. The music is indeed a substratum of punk rock, but it is characterised by a distincitve emotional flair of a certain type. This 'certain type' interests me and I want to talk about it (when I get to it further down this entry). The music tends to be very pessimistic. In keeping with this pessimism, emo band members wear black, often use black make-up and often die their hair black. The pessimism is very much self-absorbed and inner-oriented.
This inner-orientation is one element that distinguishes them from other musically born subcultures. Emo is quite different to 'punk' or 'goth', even though surface imagery like choices of clothing and closely related musical tastes, and a generally pessimistic attitude towards life, seem to closely correspond. Most of us have a basic idea of what 'goth' or 'punk' are. Goth and punk are similar to each other in their inherently countercultural values; they both oppose the norms and values developed by late capitalist society. They oppose consumerism and their own conceptions of what 'conformity' is; they tend to be repelled by the image of the white-bread, urban middle-class nuclear family. Emo does not oppose these ideals because it is tied so closely to them.
How is it that a subculture that is, on the surface, so similar to punk and particularly goth, have such different values? This is one intriguing facet of emo. Emos do not oppose consumerism because they were brought up in the same white middle class families that vote republican and live on a 1/4-acre block. They're stuck in the middle of mainstream and alternative values. A conservative, subjectified education system has brought up teenagers with an uncritical sensibility. A desire to be more independent, like their more articulate goth counterparts, has led them to the same kind of dark outlook on life in a weak attempt at pseudo-social-resistance, but, because of their uncritical sensibilities, they offer no social critique; they can only turn the pessimism inwards. Emo negativity is subsequently highly individualistic. Many such songs are bleating whines about how hard the singer's life is.
The worst case in point that I know of is a band called Simple Plan. I make no attempt to hide tendentiousness here; I hate these guys with a passion. I've heard four of their singles on the radio and on TV. Three of them are pathetic whining about how hard the singer's life is and how everyone mistreats and abuses him. The lyrics of the other one is an assortment of cliches that form a sort of water-weak moan about how terrible it is to live in our society. You might state here that this does suggests an attempt at social criticism, but prevalence of these silly cliches show that the singer is more interested in complaining about how bad things are than actually trying to explore why and how they're bad. Look at the lyrics here, and I'll break them down a bit.
Simple Plan - Crazy. There initially seems to be some interesting points made in the song. Girls that take diet pills; needless desires to be famous; breakdown of the nuclear family. These are real problems, right? The problem is, the singer unconsciously frames social problems within his own self-absorbed misery. He asks in the chorus, is anybody gonna save me? Can anybody tell me what's going on?
Huh? Is anyone gonna save you? I thought you were saying how bad society was, not your life.
So where does he go after the first chorus? He looks at the family. Now, I could be wrong here, but given the lyrics to another of their singles, in which he blames his father for being a perfectionist whose standards he can't possibly meet, his choice to complain in the previously discussed single about parental mismanagement where 'parents act like enemies' sounds a lot like a disguised plead for sympathy.
There's also a little bridge in there that sums up the emo character in a way that I couldn't describe any better: No one cares/No one likes to share/I guess life's unfair.
What attempt at social criticsm there is thus provides a shameful disguise for the emo singer's need to tell the world, which it seems that he sees as a giant metaphorical therapist, how miserable his life is.
The reason that the word 'emo' has such a bad name among listeners of metal and older rock is that the emo's character shames the face of rock. Rock was until recently countercultural and socially evocative. Now, it's becoming self-obsessed and weak. Emo is the ultimate expression of this.
Next I want to look at bad faith and falsity of character in the retail industry.
'Emo' is an abbreviation of 'emotional'. The music is indeed a substratum of punk rock, but it is characterised by a distincitve emotional flair of a certain type. This 'certain type' interests me and I want to talk about it (when I get to it further down this entry). The music tends to be very pessimistic. In keeping with this pessimism, emo band members wear black, often use black make-up and often die their hair black. The pessimism is very much self-absorbed and inner-oriented.
This inner-orientation is one element that distinguishes them from other musically born subcultures. Emo is quite different to 'punk' or 'goth', even though surface imagery like choices of clothing and closely related musical tastes, and a generally pessimistic attitude towards life, seem to closely correspond. Most of us have a basic idea of what 'goth' or 'punk' are. Goth and punk are similar to each other in their inherently countercultural values; they both oppose the norms and values developed by late capitalist society. They oppose consumerism and their own conceptions of what 'conformity' is; they tend to be repelled by the image of the white-bread, urban middle-class nuclear family. Emo does not oppose these ideals because it is tied so closely to them.
How is it that a subculture that is, on the surface, so similar to punk and particularly goth, have such different values? This is one intriguing facet of emo. Emos do not oppose consumerism because they were brought up in the same white middle class families that vote republican and live on a 1/4-acre block. They're stuck in the middle of mainstream and alternative values. A conservative, subjectified education system has brought up teenagers with an uncritical sensibility. A desire to be more independent, like their more articulate goth counterparts, has led them to the same kind of dark outlook on life in a weak attempt at pseudo-social-resistance, but, because of their uncritical sensibilities, they offer no social critique; they can only turn the pessimism inwards. Emo negativity is subsequently highly individualistic. Many such songs are bleating whines about how hard the singer's life is.
The worst case in point that I know of is a band called Simple Plan. I make no attempt to hide tendentiousness here; I hate these guys with a passion. I've heard four of their singles on the radio and on TV. Three of them are pathetic whining about how hard the singer's life is and how everyone mistreats and abuses him. The lyrics of the other one is an assortment of cliches that form a sort of water-weak moan about how terrible it is to live in our society. You might state here that this does suggests an attempt at social criticism, but prevalence of these silly cliches show that the singer is more interested in complaining about how bad things are than actually trying to explore why and how they're bad. Look at the lyrics here, and I'll break them down a bit.
Simple Plan - Crazy. There initially seems to be some interesting points made in the song. Girls that take diet pills; needless desires to be famous; breakdown of the nuclear family. These are real problems, right? The problem is, the singer unconsciously frames social problems within his own self-absorbed misery. He asks in the chorus, is anybody gonna save me? Can anybody tell me what's going on?
Huh? Is anyone gonna save you? I thought you were saying how bad society was, not your life.
So where does he go after the first chorus? He looks at the family. Now, I could be wrong here, but given the lyrics to another of their singles, in which he blames his father for being a perfectionist whose standards he can't possibly meet, his choice to complain in the previously discussed single about parental mismanagement where 'parents act like enemies' sounds a lot like a disguised plead for sympathy.
There's also a little bridge in there that sums up the emo character in a way that I couldn't describe any better: No one cares/No one likes to share/I guess life's unfair.
What attempt at social criticsm there is thus provides a shameful disguise for the emo singer's need to tell the world, which it seems that he sees as a giant metaphorical therapist, how miserable his life is.
The reason that the word 'emo' has such a bad name among listeners of metal and older rock is that the emo's character shames the face of rock. Rock was until recently countercultural and socially evocative. Now, it's becoming self-obsessed and weak. Emo is the ultimate expression of this.
Next I want to look at bad faith and falsity of character in the retail industry.
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Eating S**t (and liking it, too)
The purchasing of consumer goods is often an enjoyable experience. This doesn't just apply to those of us that do it excessively. There's a universal trait of pleasure that results from choice and subsequently from the creation of a consumer identity. So, looking at these two notions a little closer:
Choice denotes freedom and autonomy. As individuals with unique tastes and outlooks we select what appeals to us or what suits our circumstances best. I might buy a can of peeled tomatoes if my favourite meal is a pasta dish with a tomato-based sauce. You might buy lentils because you're a vegetarian and you need some supplementary iron in your diet. Theoretically, these choices are solely ours to make, but this is something of an illusion. If I want a can of chopped, peeled whole tomatoes that weighs in at 500g, I can't buy it because no local supermarket stocks it. To a degree, this is fair enough; we can't ask for exactly what we want. The point remains, however, that the freedom associated with choice is not as pure as it sometimes feels like it is.
Consumer identity is built upon this structured freedom of choice. The clothes you choose to wear, the technological devices through which you communicate and interact with multimedia, the food you eat and your preferred form of transport are parts of who you are because they compose your day-to-day experiences and shape your interaction with other people. You express yourself through a plethora of small fragments of meaning.
This is pretty suggestive of a possible reason for brand loyalty and compulsive shopping. Both seem to be somewhat desperate acts. Brand loyalty resounds as something peculiarly religious. It's the worship of something non-physical, often on irrational grounds. Just as a Catholic Christian takes his or her religion to be a critical component of his or her identity, so the disciples of brand names of consumer products integrate the brand into a sense of who they are. Compulsive shopping is similar in its apparent search for 'something to fill the hole'. The notion of consumer activity being used as some sort of substitute for filling up the 'emptiness inside' is almost cliched, but perhaps this is not without cause. This kind of behaviour frames consumerism as a sort of religion for late capitalist societies.
Most religions offer some form of transcendence, which I personally believe is an important part of human existence. When I talk of transcendence, I'm referring to the sensation of somewhat losing a sense of oneself, of gaining an awareness of being part of something larger or something eternal. Modern means of reaching such a state seem to be found in the use of some illicit drugs, religious experiences, and love. Unfortunately, the inherently material nature of consumerism doesn't provide the means for transcendence. Those who attempt to 'fill the hole' this way tend to remain disappointed, because they're unconsciously trying to correct a spiritual problem with a material solution.
I can't pretend to have the answer to this problem, so I'll look instead at some of the goods we buy that are of questionable value. One of the principal techniques of therapists for shopaholics is to try to instil a sense of distinction between want and need. Here are a couple of things that I think I can reason into the former category:
Portable DVD
players. I work part-time in sales in consumer electronics, and some of the things I sell I admittedly struggle to believe in. This is one such thing. Now that discipline is pretty much admonished as a method of parenting, one of the only ways to shut the kids up while they're pestering you in the back seat is to put a 7-10 inch LCD screen in front of their faces. Power the thing through your cigarette lighter to suck up the car battery extra fast, and let Billy's favourite movie teach him the things that he should be learning from you. Nothing like some high-powered electronic media to further weaken the ties of the nuclear family.
Choice denotes freedom and autonomy. As individuals with unique tastes and outlooks we select what appeals to us or what suits our circumstances best. I might buy a can of peeled tomatoes if my favourite meal is a pasta dish with a tomato-based sauce. You might buy lentils because you're a vegetarian and you need some supplementary iron in your diet. Theoretically, these choices are solely ours to make, but this is something of an illusion. If I want a can of chopped, peeled whole tomatoes that weighs in at 500g, I can't buy it because no local supermarket stocks it. To a degree, this is fair enough; we can't ask for exactly what we want. The point remains, however, that the freedom associated with choice is not as pure as it sometimes feels like it is.
Consumer identity is built upon this structured freedom of choice. The clothes you choose to wear, the technological devices through which you communicate and interact with multimedia, the food you eat and your preferred form of transport are parts of who you are because they compose your day-to-day experiences and shape your interaction with other people. You express yourself through a plethora of small fragments of meaning.
This is pretty suggestive of a possible reason for brand loyalty and compulsive shopping. Both seem to be somewhat desperate acts. Brand loyalty resounds as something peculiarly religious. It's the worship of something non-physical, often on irrational grounds. Just as a Catholic Christian takes his or her religion to be a critical component of his or her identity, so the disciples of brand names of consumer products integrate the brand into a sense of who they are. Compulsive shopping is similar in its apparent search for 'something to fill the hole'. The notion of consumer activity being used as some sort of substitute for filling up the 'emptiness inside' is almost cliched, but perhaps this is not without cause. This kind of behaviour frames consumerism as a sort of religion for late capitalist societies.
Most religions offer some form of transcendence, which I personally believe is an important part of human existence. When I talk of transcendence, I'm referring to the sensation of somewhat losing a sense of oneself, of gaining an awareness of being part of something larger or something eternal. Modern means of reaching such a state seem to be found in the use of some illicit drugs, religious experiences, and love. Unfortunately, the inherently material nature of consumerism doesn't provide the means for transcendence. Those who attempt to 'fill the hole' this way tend to remain disappointed, because they're unconsciously trying to correct a spiritual problem with a material solution.
I can't pretend to have the answer to this problem, so I'll look instead at some of the goods we buy that are of questionable value. One of the principal techniques of therapists for shopaholics is to try to instil a sense of distinction between want and need. Here are a couple of things that I think I can reason into the former category:
Portable DVD
players. I work part-time in sales in consumer electronics, and some of the things I sell I admittedly struggle to believe in. This is one such thing. Now that discipline is pretty much admonished as a method of parenting, one of the only ways to shut the kids up while they're pestering you in the back seat is to put a 7-10 inch LCD screen in front of their faces. Power the thing through your cigarette lighter to suck up the car battery extra fast, and let Billy's favourite movie teach him the things that he should be learning from you. Nothing like some high-powered electronic media to further weaken the ties of the nuclear family.Global positioning
systems. A street directory costs as little as a twentieth the amount. The time it takes to power up these things and get them to communicate with satellites dwarfs the time it takes to work out where to go from a map book. OK, sympathy must be extended to those that can't read a map to save themselves, and in those cases, maybe the lower-end models make a worthwhile purchase. I can better understand the purchase of one of the more basic units, but the higher-end ones have all sorts of useless crap tacked on to them, like bluetooth, a massive amount of hard drive space and synchronisation with your MP3 player. These things are a prime example of the way that technological developments sometimes strip us of our independence; why do it yourself when your GPS can do it for you?
Four-wheel dr
ives. They guzzle fuel, they make for terrible parking, they're dangerous to other motorists and they're not as safe for the passengers as some would believe. They make a nice status symbol for anyone with an overpowering inferiority complex. They have no use in suburbia. If you live rurally, or regularly drive off the beaten track, as is the case in the photo, you've got more of a case for needing one. Still, whatever the state of the oil crisis, you can rest assured that it isn't really that bad if city folk are still driving these things around.
Wants, not needs. The real problem is, this stuff keeps our economy going. How do we escape it without fiscal devastation? That's something for a radical economist to answer.
Next post I want to look at emo culture.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Unleashing the Rage
I stress once more that anybody who is sensitive to discussion about school shootings or related problems, in a particular or a general sense, should not read on. I can't be rendered insensitive if I warn you and offer you the informed choice of not to read this. What follows is why I think these terrible occurrences are happening with such frequency. If anybody wants to input a difference of opinion, feel free.
Some people are less stable than others. No matter what the nature of social integration in a given society is like, some individuals will always fail to meet the unspoken standards determined by social customs. There's nothing wrong with this; it's natural, and, to a degree, quite healthy. What is constantly debated by academics and civil forces is the appropriate and ethical means with which to constrain deviant activities when they're no longer healthy, no longer productive and are a positive threat to the lives of other citizens. We live in a liberal society. Questions of where to draw the line of state interference and surveillance of indivdual lives are constantly being raised without answer.
Nobody knows what to do. The front page of the paper (in an Australian city) responds to the killings of Cho Seung-Hui with the headline 'NOT AGAIN'. This immediately indicates a sense of hopelessness, of helplessness. We have no idea how to stop these maniacs from killing because we don't know when, where or how, until it's happened.
But we need to feel certain. We need progress. That's why there's so much public awareness about lax American gun laws. We have to feel like we're going somewhere, anywhere, to fix this problem. Questions of the appropriate interference of the state in people's lives are raised again in the problem of appropriate restrictions to the right to own a gun. This issue-within-an-issue suggests a desire to fix the problem as quickly and as simply as possible. And yes, there's something to be said for that. If a solution works, problem solved. Right?
Almost, but not quite. It's highly likely that if gun laws were waxed considerably, shootings like this would decrease in occurrence. But angry, psychotic young men would still be angry, psychotic young men, and if any of them did manage to still obtain a firearm and a few bullets - well, you know how the story goes. So what do we do?
Well, let's look at the causes. The ultimate cause in each case is a very angry young man who is different to the rest of us in two main respects:
1. He is very, very, very angry at everybody. Anger at one or a few people is applied to everybody he sees.
2. He no longer has a sense of restraint. He reaches a point where he can, for whatever reason, do what the rest of us could barely contemplate.
These causes seem to be too deeply psychologically embedded to be anything that can be caused by violent video games or heavy metal. If these were possible causes, why wouldn't anyone who plays Half-Life or listens to Marilyn Manson do terrible things like this? It has to be something that is more fundamental to the construction of the human psyche.
Yeah, I'm leaning towards social and cultural causes here. Might I stipulate that I wouldn't for a second absolve Mr. Seung-Hui of responsibility for his actions. However, there's an unresolvable sociological tension between individual autonomy and the impact of social forces on one's behaviour. What I'm trying to say is, it's nowhere near as simple as writing guys like these off as nutcases that shouldn't have been born. If circumstances had been different, who's to say whether or not what did happen, would've happened?
So let's look at cultural causes. Allow me to throw in a bit of psychoanalytic cultural theory here. A historian called Christopher Lasch wrote about American cultural narcissism (check out The Culture of Narcissism; it's a pretty interesting read). Narcissists are basically people who often appear to love themselves but are really filled with hate, and constantly require approval from others. This rage is caused primarily by parents who treat their children like consumer goods, like a part of themselves, and not an individual being. It's also caused by a lax education system and materialist social relations. The narcissistic kid subsequently grows up in an environment with very little discipline, and will often have to create his or her own sense of restriction and self-governance, which can overcompensate and become really aggressive. This, perhaps, is why easy-going families often raise nasty kids.
Cho Seung-Hui apparently grew up in seemingly quite a normal, healthy family. What if his upbringing helped to germinate a narcissistic personality? If this were the case, what if there was some other prevailing factor that encouraged Seung-Hui to redirect his self-directed rage outwards and mentally absolve himself of all of his actions? In his disturbing confessional video, Cheung-Hui had successfully excused himself for what he was about to do by conferring blame to other people, to society at large. If he managed to convince himself that it was totally society's fault that 'made him like this', what else was there to stop him from doing what he did on April 17?
Many western societies facilitate the shifting of responsibility for one's actions away from oneself. Hell, the sociological framework I've been talking in here comes dangerously close. And look at the way that therapy culture has allowed people to find an excuse to give up on life when when they may not always be quite as sick as they make themselves out to be.
My conclusion thus comes in the form of a question, because I'm not quite so arrogant as to state that what I believe IS the truth. What if these killings could be stopped by reconsidering the way that we raise our children, allowing them to understand themselves as fully functioning individuals with individual responsibilities?
Maybe I'm totally wrong and maybe I've just written a long spiel of total B.S. Maybe Seung-Hui's parents loved him as an autonomous human being and raised him in an environment of reasonable discipline. I don't know. I just think that all of this stuff about cultural narcissism explains a lot.
Next post I want to have a stab at the unnecessary consumer crap we buy.
Some people are less stable than others. No matter what the nature of social integration in a given society is like, some individuals will always fail to meet the unspoken standards determined by social customs. There's nothing wrong with this; it's natural, and, to a degree, quite healthy. What is constantly debated by academics and civil forces is the appropriate and ethical means with which to constrain deviant activities when they're no longer healthy, no longer productive and are a positive threat to the lives of other citizens. We live in a liberal society. Questions of where to draw the line of state interference and surveillance of indivdual lives are constantly being raised without answer.
Nobody knows what to do. The front page of the paper (in an Australian city) responds to the killings of Cho Seung-Hui with the headline 'NOT AGAIN'. This immediately indicates a sense of hopelessness, of helplessness. We have no idea how to stop these maniacs from killing because we don't know when, where or how, until it's happened.
But we need to feel certain. We need progress. That's why there's so much public awareness about lax American gun laws. We have to feel like we're going somewhere, anywhere, to fix this problem. Questions of the appropriate interference of the state in people's lives are raised again in the problem of appropriate restrictions to the right to own a gun. This issue-within-an-issue suggests a desire to fix the problem as quickly and as simply as possible. And yes, there's something to be said for that. If a solution works, problem solved. Right?
Almost, but not quite. It's highly likely that if gun laws were waxed considerably, shootings like this would decrease in occurrence. But angry, psychotic young men would still be angry, psychotic young men, and if any of them did manage to still obtain a firearm and a few bullets - well, you know how the story goes. So what do we do?
Well, let's look at the causes. The ultimate cause in each case is a very angry young man who is different to the rest of us in two main respects:
1. He is very, very, very angry at everybody. Anger at one or a few people is applied to everybody he sees.
2. He no longer has a sense of restraint. He reaches a point where he can, for whatever reason, do what the rest of us could barely contemplate.
These causes seem to be too deeply psychologically embedded to be anything that can be caused by violent video games or heavy metal. If these were possible causes, why wouldn't anyone who plays Half-Life or listens to Marilyn Manson do terrible things like this? It has to be something that is more fundamental to the construction of the human psyche.
Yeah, I'm leaning towards social and cultural causes here. Might I stipulate that I wouldn't for a second absolve Mr. Seung-Hui of responsibility for his actions. However, there's an unresolvable sociological tension between individual autonomy and the impact of social forces on one's behaviour. What I'm trying to say is, it's nowhere near as simple as writing guys like these off as nutcases that shouldn't have been born. If circumstances had been different, who's to say whether or not what did happen, would've happened?
So let's look at cultural causes. Allow me to throw in a bit of psychoanalytic cultural theory here. A historian called Christopher Lasch wrote about American cultural narcissism (check out The Culture of Narcissism; it's a pretty interesting read). Narcissists are basically people who often appear to love themselves but are really filled with hate, and constantly require approval from others. This rage is caused primarily by parents who treat their children like consumer goods, like a part of themselves, and not an individual being. It's also caused by a lax education system and materialist social relations. The narcissistic kid subsequently grows up in an environment with very little discipline, and will often have to create his or her own sense of restriction and self-governance, which can overcompensate and become really aggressive. This, perhaps, is why easy-going families often raise nasty kids.
Cho Seung-Hui apparently grew up in seemingly quite a normal, healthy family. What if his upbringing helped to germinate a narcissistic personality? If this were the case, what if there was some other prevailing factor that encouraged Seung-Hui to redirect his self-directed rage outwards and mentally absolve himself of all of his actions? In his disturbing confessional video, Cheung-Hui had successfully excused himself for what he was about to do by conferring blame to other people, to society at large. If he managed to convince himself that it was totally society's fault that 'made him like this', what else was there to stop him from doing what he did on April 17?
Many western societies facilitate the shifting of responsibility for one's actions away from oneself. Hell, the sociological framework I've been talking in here comes dangerously close. And look at the way that therapy culture has allowed people to find an excuse to give up on life when when they may not always be quite as sick as they make themselves out to be.
My conclusion thus comes in the form of a question, because I'm not quite so arrogant as to state that what I believe IS the truth. What if these killings could be stopped by reconsidering the way that we raise our children, allowing them to understand themselves as fully functioning individuals with individual responsibilities?
Maybe I'm totally wrong and maybe I've just written a long spiel of total B.S. Maybe Seung-Hui's parents loved him as an autonomous human being and raised him in an environment of reasonable discipline. I don't know. I just think that all of this stuff about cultural narcissism explains a lot.
Next post I want to have a stab at the unnecessary consumer crap we buy.
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
Why I hate Adam Duritz from Counting Crows
Counting Crows are a genre-resisting band that draw elements from grunge, folk rock and country music. They released their first album, August and Everything After, in 1993. It was quite successful in the U.S. and internationally, and yielded the band's most prolific single, Mr. Jones. The band has since released three more studio albums, two live performance albums and a greatest hits. The fifth album is now being developed. Over time, and depending on where you'd draw the boundaries, the number of members in the band have varied from five to seven. Adam Duritz, the lead singer and lyricist, is pretty much a central icon of the band's identity.
Counting Crows have been charged with being a 'slow' band, or a 'lazy' band. They have released a studio album every three or four years. Most of the time this seems to be because Adam Duritz is a rather emotionally frail character, who finds touring and the musical production process taxing and challenging. This kind of frailty I would not hold against anybody. Hell, if I were famous, I'd probably struggle with the enormity of the responsibility too.
Mr. Duritz found himself feeling a lot of pressure while touring after the release of August. After Kurt Cobain died, he thought, for whatever reason, that he might go the same way. He has also, in recent years, experienced a protracted depressive episode that he is now gradually recovering from. This is also something I'd never hold against anybody.
What I tend to hold against people are character flaws, and depression and sensitivity are not character flaws. What I have a problem with is Mr. Duritz's barely concealed contempt for his fan base and his lack of appreciation for the wealth and comfortable lifestyle that they've provided him. Allow me to illustrate.
In a blog posted to the official Counting Crows website (in December I believe), Mr. Duritz told his message board-dwelling fans something to the effect that 'some of you are f**king awful people'. This initially seems fair enough, given that there has been a lot of bitching and moaning on these message boards. I've not participated in it myself, but I've flicked through some of the threads and I see what he means.
Nonetheless, it begs the question: what makes the fans of a band disrespectful? Hardcore fans of some bands will psychologically adhere to their movements like little nazis, even if they make bad musical choices. This isn't the case for the Crows in either respect. They've consistently produced excellent music for about fifteen years, but their fans often show little respect. This little puzzle seems answerable by one simple hypothesis, that, once I'd realised it, seemed hard to refute: A BAND WILL RECEIVE ABOUT AS MUCH RESPECT FROM ITS FANS AS IT GIVES. Hell, just think of Pearl Jam. Two hours plus for a concert and endless bootlegs, as well as a hardworking ethic that drives them to create the best music possible. Their many hardcore fans are obsessive.
So what's disrespectful about Adam's behaviour? Consider a song called Have You Seen Me Lately from the second album, Recovering the Satellites. Adam sings 'Get away from me/this isn't gonna be easy/but I don't need you/believe me/you got a piece of me.../but I don't need anyone'. A reliable source has quoted Adam as saying that this is about how his fans don't understand him. So: he doesn't need his fans? He doesn't need them? If it weren't for his fans, he'd probably be working in an office or factory somewhere, or be a musician that constantly struggles to make a living. If he wishes he were in either position, it was his fault for getting signed in the first place. Sorry buddy, but fans are what you get when you earn lots of money in the music industry.
Moreover, he's stated that he does not find the music-making process enjoyable. Aside from this being a strangely plaintive thing to say, I must ask: why's he doing it in the first place? I don't doubt that he has enough money to retire - which is almost what he's done anyway, at the speed with which the band releases albums. Studios are generally pretty stingy, but Counting Crows are such a big band that I sincerely doubt that Mr. Duritz is not very comfortably off. Furthermore, when a fan on the message board accused the band of being lazy, Adam replied in a blog that it was really none of the fan's business. This is a pretty strong indication of a lack of respect.
All the guy wants is love. That's the way it seems to me, anyway. That's something I also understand on a very personal level, but what I can't understand is the way that, through so much of his behaviour and his expression, he seems to whine about how nobody understands him, how his fans don't understand him, and all he wants is the same damn thing that almost every person in the western world wants (if they haven't got it), but is apparently unique to his oh-so-sorrowful situation: love.
Why does this piss me off so much? This is a guy that doesn't know what he's got and won't take responsibility for his fans. I don't want to be the fan of a band whose lead singer seems to have no respect for his fans and won't understand that even if they don't understand him, they've bought the music that the band's produced because they enjoy it and respect his work as a musician. But I am a fan.
All of this being said, I think that Counting Crows are, musically, a brilliant band. Their music charts emotional territories that few bands can wander into. Duritz usually weaves his sorrow into his lyrics subtly enough to maintain a strong melancholic harmony without resorting to annoying pseudo-emotion. I would suggest that anyone interested in light rock of the '90s check out any of their studio albums.
Next post I want to talk about school shootings. Anyone sensitive to such material has been warned.
Counting Crows have been charged with being a 'slow' band, or a 'lazy' band. They have released a studio album every three or four years. Most of the time this seems to be because Adam Duritz is a rather emotionally frail character, who finds touring and the musical production process taxing and challenging. This kind of frailty I would not hold against anybody. Hell, if I were famous, I'd probably struggle with the enormity of the responsibility too.
Mr. Duritz found himself feeling a lot of pressure while touring after the release of August. After Kurt Cobain died, he thought, for whatever reason, that he might go the same way. He has also, in recent years, experienced a protracted depressive episode that he is now gradually recovering from. This is also something I'd never hold against anybody.
What I tend to hold against people are character flaws, and depression and sensitivity are not character flaws. What I have a problem with is Mr. Duritz's barely concealed contempt for his fan base and his lack of appreciation for the wealth and comfortable lifestyle that they've provided him. Allow me to illustrate.
In a blog posted to the official Counting Crows website (in December I believe), Mr. Duritz told his message board-dwelling fans something to the effect that 'some of you are f**king awful people'. This initially seems fair enough, given that there has been a lot of bitching and moaning on these message boards. I've not participated in it myself, but I've flicked through some of the threads and I see what he means.
Nonetheless, it begs the question: what makes the fans of a band disrespectful? Hardcore fans of some bands will psychologically adhere to their movements like little nazis, even if they make bad musical choices. This isn't the case for the Crows in either respect. They've consistently produced excellent music for about fifteen years, but their fans often show little respect. This little puzzle seems answerable by one simple hypothesis, that, once I'd realised it, seemed hard to refute: A BAND WILL RECEIVE ABOUT AS MUCH RESPECT FROM ITS FANS AS IT GIVES. Hell, just think of Pearl Jam. Two hours plus for a concert and endless bootlegs, as well as a hardworking ethic that drives them to create the best music possible. Their many hardcore fans are obsessive.
So what's disrespectful about Adam's behaviour? Consider a song called Have You Seen Me Lately from the second album, Recovering the Satellites. Adam sings 'Get away from me/this isn't gonna be easy/but I don't need you/believe me/you got a piece of me.../but I don't need anyone'. A reliable source has quoted Adam as saying that this is about how his fans don't understand him. So: he doesn't need his fans? He doesn't need them? If it weren't for his fans, he'd probably be working in an office or factory somewhere, or be a musician that constantly struggles to make a living. If he wishes he were in either position, it was his fault for getting signed in the first place. Sorry buddy, but fans are what you get when you earn lots of money in the music industry.
Moreover, he's stated that he does not find the music-making process enjoyable. Aside from this being a strangely plaintive thing to say, I must ask: why's he doing it in the first place? I don't doubt that he has enough money to retire - which is almost what he's done anyway, at the speed with which the band releases albums. Studios are generally pretty stingy, but Counting Crows are such a big band that I sincerely doubt that Mr. Duritz is not very comfortably off. Furthermore, when a fan on the message board accused the band of being lazy, Adam replied in a blog that it was really none of the fan's business. This is a pretty strong indication of a lack of respect.
All the guy wants is love. That's the way it seems to me, anyway. That's something I also understand on a very personal level, but what I can't understand is the way that, through so much of his behaviour and his expression, he seems to whine about how nobody understands him, how his fans don't understand him, and all he wants is the same damn thing that almost every person in the western world wants (if they haven't got it), but is apparently unique to his oh-so-sorrowful situation: love.
Why does this piss me off so much? This is a guy that doesn't know what he's got and won't take responsibility for his fans. I don't want to be the fan of a band whose lead singer seems to have no respect for his fans and won't understand that even if they don't understand him, they've bought the music that the band's produced because they enjoy it and respect his work as a musician. But I am a fan.
All of this being said, I think that Counting Crows are, musically, a brilliant band. Their music charts emotional territories that few bands can wander into. Duritz usually weaves his sorrow into his lyrics subtly enough to maintain a strong melancholic harmony without resorting to annoying pseudo-emotion. I would suggest that anyone interested in light rock of the '90s check out any of their studio albums.
Next post I want to talk about school shootings. Anyone sensitive to such material has been warned.
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